Unnecessary gizmos at town meeting

We don't need electronic voting at town meeting. I attend the Dennis town meeting every year, and for more than 30 years, we have never gone to a second night and never failed to get a quorum. The brisk and efficient style of town moderators Peter McDowell and Robert Chamberlain have benefited the town and kept interest high.

Comment

By CYNTHIA STEAD

capecodtimes.com

By CYNTHIA STEAD

Posted May. 8, 2014 at 2:00 AM

By CYNTHIA STEAD
Posted May. 8, 2014 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

We don't need electronic voting at town meeting. I attend the Dennis town meeting every year, and for more than 30 years, we have never gone to a second night and never failed to get a quorum. The brisk and efficient style of town moderators Peter McDowell and Robert Chamberlain have benefited the town and kept interest high.

The problems with some town meetings, including abuse of speaking time, lack of efficiency in running the meeting, lack of quorum, all fall at the feet of the moderator, who has to be elected every three years. Adding electronic voting to the mix isn't going to fix any of those problems. Maybe the real solution is to elect new moderators.

The high attendance by retirees and the lack of younger voters reflect the demographic makeup of the Cape. I'd feel more sympathy for the baby-sitting argument if town meetings didn't offer child care and the parents never went to a movie or out to eat because of their kids.

Participation is an important responsibility, and young people do make time when an issue interests them. Being able to vote with video gamelike devices doesn't make it more likely they would attend. As I have often said, until young people choose to get involved with municipal government (instead of wasting scant available time on state and federal races because they are more glamorous), we will continue to have taxpayer-subsidized golf courses and no youth centers or services.

The call for electronic voting devices isn't coming from those who are bored by argument or indifferent to procedure. It is coming from people who want to make direct government a more removed one. Even though two-thirds of Massachusetts communities use town meeting for governance, increasing numbers of Cape residents are coming from places where governing is done by representatives and mayors. Their grasp of Robert's Rules of Order may be shaky, and some don't understand that they are the governing body themselves. I've heard people wonder aloud why we are voting on something when the selectmen have already made up their mind. But selectmen cannot bind the community to contracts and appropriations without the permission of town meeting, and town meeting is free to void agreements that were made if it disagrees with them. Some are uncomfortable with this responsibility and claim to be afraid to raise their hands because their neighbors will know what they think. They may be more comfortable secretly voting for mayors or councilors they can then complain about, but they are throwing away citizenship with both hands.

There is a practical objection, as well. I've seen pictures of the kind of devices that Eastham is considering. They resemble TV remotes, and that gives me pause. Visually impaired seniors often struggle to change the channel, and as they point the device, the "25" often slips down to a "58." People with Parkinson's disease and arthritis often have similar difficulties. How many unwitting wrong votes might the machine tally? Even those who have difficulty extending their arm can display a voter tag to the tellers.

If the towns want to consider spending money on town meeting, I have a different suggestion. As far as I know, Dennis town meeting is still the only one to use a CART (Communication Access Realtime Translation) reporter to take the required minutes of the meeting, which allows the business of the meeting to be simulcast onto a large screen for the benefit of those who are hard of hearing. I remember when this was first done; there were questions about how many people it would really benefit, as the reason given was to bring town meeting into compliance with the federal Americans With Disabilities Act for the deaf. In reality, if the auditorium were a boat it would list heavily to port as people with more moderate hearing loss also sit on that side in order to follow along clearly. Maybe getting into compliance with a decades-old existing law is more important than privacy gizmos.

If we can't enforce the laws we have, why make more?

Cynthia E. Stead of Dennis is a town meeting addict. She can be reached at cestead@gmail.com.